I recently had a debate with my Ethics, Religion and Morals teacher. Here in Canada, we are not taught one religion in school, nor is it made to be enforced. We simply learn about most contemporary religions. As we were discussing Mohammad as a historical figure, I asked if or not the teacher had any evidence of Jesus actually existing. She said that there was, though, that there were accounts written by people who lived during Jesus' time and knew him. I argued that these could very well have been forgeries or written at a later date, to no avail.

Does anyone have documents like this, or other physical proof of Jesus?

No one knows who wrote the four canonical Gospels of the Bible. They did not exist during the time of Jesus' supposed lifetime. The unknown authors do not claim to have ever known the earthly Jesus. No original gospel manuscripts exist we only have copies of copies. Other gospels existed at the time the four gospels were chosen, but they were destroyed or lost. Scholars know from critical textural research that there simply occurs no evidence that the gospel authors served as apostles described in the Gospel stories. The stories were created and attributed to the authors Mark, Luke, Matthew and John (only titles) the authors are unknown as most bibles inform. This new religion was a synchronization of ancient myths and religions that existed long before Christianity. The Gospels are written almost virtually in the third person. Eyewitnesses write first person accounts not third person stories. Some of these stories supposedly come from Jesus when he was alone. They knew what Jesus said or thought when he was alone. This is clearly fiction and a technique of fiction writers.

Jesus was supposed to be a prodigy (child genius), but he never wrote anything. We do have writings of people who lived at the supposed time and before the time of Jesus, but they never wrote a thing about Jesus. There are no contemporary accounts of his life or death.
We have the very words written by Julius Caesar himself who lived 100 years before the alleged Jesus. We also have hundreds of letters written to Caesar and from Caesar. We have other artifacts that confirm Caesar existed. There are statues, paintings and coins depicting the likeness of Caesar. We know what Caesar looked like and we have a complete history of Julius Caesar's life.

There exist no contemporary record of Jesus; no evidence of a City called Nazareth in the 1st century, and originally there was no belief in a human Jesus. The Gospels contradict each other; and there is plenty of evidence that the Jesus myth was copied from existing earlier myths.

There exists no documents from the ancient world by witnesses or followers stating that Jesus had risen from the dead. There are no references to a historical Jesus by any known contemporary historian. No literate person in the time period, which Jesus supposedly lived in, mentioned him in any known writing. All of the documents about the alleged Jesus came well after his supposed death. The Gospels are writings from unknown authors, and the names assigned them are just titles. They could not serve as historical evidence for a historical Jesus, because they are hearsay accounts. They were not written in Jesus' lifetime.

Biblical Scholars know this and do not claim it is historical evidence. They instead claim that what's important is the story. A story that is a lie (pawned of as the truth) can't be important.

The claims about Jesus come from writings of unknown people long after the events. There are no contemporary Roman records of Pontius Pilate executing Jesus.

At the time of Jesus, there were many writers who were recording the events of the time. We have extensive volumes that could fill a library.

Philo the historian was living in Jerusalem when Jesus was crucified. Philo was there when the earthquake, supernatural darkness, and resurrection of the dead took place. Philo was there when Christ himself rose from the dead and, in the presence of many witnesses, ascended into heaven. Philo the famous historian never wrote one word about any of this, and neither did any other historian.

A well-founded historical account is cited with sources that trace to the subject themselves. There are no writings of eyewitnesses and there are no artifact citations to documents, which give personal or eyewitness accounts, and no writings of a Jesus.

The Jesus story is almost identical to other earlier myths about savior gods. The Jesus myth was not original.

I thought I would add, since you mentioned Muhammad, that interestingly enough the same situation exists with Muhammad, who did not write anything including the Qur'an. Various editions of the Qur'an were written down in the 30 years or so following the death of Muhammad, but Muslim histories, such as Sahih Bukhari, tell us that these were contradictory and incomplete.

After the death of most of the eyewitnesses at the battle of Yamama an earnest attempt was made to put together the sayings of Muhammad. According to al-Bukhari no single person could remember the whole of the Qur'an, and different parts were taken from different people. The accounts were in different dialects, and were consequently translated into the Arabic of the Qur'an at the time they were written down. Once the new official collection of the Qur'an had been produced the order went out to destroy all the other variants. The official document was made in the reign of the Caliph Uthman, and is called the "Uthmanic collection."

The length of time between the death of Muhammad and the writing of the Qur'an was about the same as the time between the ascension of Jesus and the writing of the Gospels.

The Quran completely contradicts the claims that Jesus was God, or that he was in any way greater than a simple prophet. The Qur'an denies the death of Jesus on the cross.

In my opinion the New Testament and the Qur'an are just about the same in their lack of credibility.

Linda, you are biased like all the atheists, despite going on and on about prove and plenty of it you never show this proof yourself. Any sincere Christian would never fall for your propaganda, because counter-arguments to your points are easily found on the Internet all we have to do is just read them.

You attack Nazareth but anwsers like this shut you down.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080205114927AAF7N47
http://www.doxa.ws/Jesus_pages/Nazareth1.html

Also you mention plenty authors whom writings would fill a library, but in reality you could mention only Philo alone. And he was Jewish so he might have been biased towards Christianity as well.

The claim that many unknown authors wrote the gospels is fishy. Try reading it and you will see that each gospels writing style stays the same throughout, try and prove me wrong. Of course, they knew what Jesus was doing alone since their writings we're divinely inspired, your arguments applies only if regular men we're making stuff up.

Present your evidence, because your claims are hanging in the air with nothing but you just stating them. Who are the biblical scholars which know there is no historical basis but the story is all that's important? What supports the idea that "the authors of the gospels are unknown"? and so on... You write a lot but inexperienced person accepts it on faith because there is no real way to establish your ideas firmly by research, thats why you don't provide anything to back it up.

What kind of myths prior to Christianity can you name which formed it? Can you again provide the concrete evidence? Which when faced with leaves no choice to the reader but to accept it? I don't think so. Is it Mithraism all over? Zeitgeist much.

Moreover, what's the point of Jesus writing something or leaving artifacts or too obvious traces behind? You all know it contradicts his doctrine of salvation by faith, if everybody knew what is the point. But it takes a lot more to believe in God and Jesus, that is why you can't take away our faith, you just don't get it. Most of us hear your arguments all the time, but they simply are not that good to begin with and do not demolish Christianity in any way.

LoyalToTheTruth,
Just in case you missed it? I was answering Charles. Let's face it, I don't care what you believe, no matter how much evidence is presented you go looking for apologist's excuses - not facts. If the truth is so awful (and it is) then we do have to be careful about what we say to people who get all their information from evangelicals and apologists. You claim that information (that isn't there) is being kept from the people because it is a test of their faith ( that is a ridiculous excuse) it's not the truth. If the proof does not exist why should anyone avoid bringing that up (because people might lose their "faith") if you think it doesn't exist to "test" their faith?

Osiris was called Chrestus, long before Jesus' existence. In spite of all the fabricated hoopla around the world about a savior god/man Jesus there is better evidence that the god/man never existed than that he did. No evidence has been found by scholars who have done extensive research that would prove a Jesus savior god/man ever existed, or that any of the events surrounding his life as described in the four Gospels ever happened. The only account of the savior god/man Jesus is found in the four Gospels and everyone knows that the names associated with the Gospels are only titles. There are no original manuscripts; the Gospels are copies of copies of copies. Everyone knows the names are titles (except the most ignorant apologists) because most bibles inform that the authors are unknown. There is no evidence supporting a historical Jesus. No confirming evidence has been found although there has been continuous and exhaustive research. There are no references to Jesus in any of the Roman histories during his presumed lifetime. Considering the fact that the Gospels tell us that Jesus' fame caused a great deal of unrest in the Roman Empire. There should be a record of his arrest and trial but there isn't. There are no Roman records even though they were very meticulous when recording other important events. There are volumes of records that survived from historians of this period and there is no account of the life of Jesus. The Romans kept meticulous volumes of records that still exist. A Jesus (accused of sedition and an enemy of the state who was executed) was ignored? That is very unlikely, especially when you consider the Gospel accounts of the impact Jesus supposedly had on multitudes of people.

In addition modern technology in various fields of science has increased our knowledge of the very beginnings of religion itself. The Ugarit cuneiform shed much light on the Biblical text. Modern science can be applied to early Christian writings too. Paul's early Christian writings were written well after the events of Jesus' life. Examination of Paul's letters indicates that Paul was ignorant of the doctrine of the virgin birth, that Paul and his contemporaries never knew an earthly Jesus. Paul makes no mention of Jesus working miracles or the crucifixion. The Gospels were written well after the events. None of them were written earlier than the fourth century, and we know the Christian fathers revised them. They were given titles none of them are originals, so they're clearly not eyewitnesses.

There is no contemporary testimony of a man named Jesus who started a new religion. An alleged Jesus would have only been concerned with the Jewish cause, since the Jews were at war with the Romans over social injustices including slavery. There is no reason a Jew would start a "new religion" for Gentiles in that time period. A religion based on a Jesus figure arrives long after Jesus' supposed death. Thousands of scholars, scientists and apologists have searched for evidence since the earliest days of the Christian era and haven't found any reliable evidence.

There were Jewish books of rabbis' in the early 2nd century with references to Jesus Ben (the son of) Pantera. There are indications that the Jewish books were burned to destroy evidence of Jesus Ben Pantera born of Mary as the result of a rape by a Roman soldier named Pantera. Mary had borne the baby in secret. Celsus cites the following claim by a Jew against Mary: "when she was pregnant she was turned out of doors by the carpenter to whom she had been betrothed, as having been guilty of adultery, and that she bore a child to a certain soldier named Panthera." There is a quote from Origen saying that Celsus (his adversary) had heard from a Jew in Jerusalem that Jesus Ben Pantera was the result of a rape by a Roman Soldier. This was very common when the Roman soldiers occupied Jerusalem. There are also some rather puzzling statements that can be found in Christian writings. Jesus was arguing with the Jewish elders: Then they said to Jesus, "We were not born as a result of immorality! We have only one Father, God himself." (John 8:37-41). Nowhere in the New Testament does the surname of Jesus or Joseph appear. Many families had these very same names Mary, Joseph and Jesus. Jesus was a very common Jewish name in the first century. There were many Jesus' with a surname except for Jesus son of Mary.

The Talmud used by modern Christian scholars is known to have been heavily edited by Christians by the 16th century - presumably to remove the dangerous references to Jesus Ben Pantera, the account is absent from the edited version.

There is also an intact version of the Talmud; still used by Jewish scholars that tells the story of a Yeishu or (Jesus) ha Notzri who was stoned to death. His body was hung from a tree on the eve of Passover. He was labeled a heretic but was not a miracle-working savior God. This account was written long before the Gospels. This story is very much like the crucifixion myth. I think the Jesus myth was based on several different Jesus' and then was incorporated into a savior myth as one story.

By the first century the Jews of the time started various movements, one was known as the Notzri, and its followers the Notzrim were spread throughout the Eastern Mediterranean region. It is known from Jewish historians and the Talmud that these first century Christians referred to themselves as Notzrim - lending strong support to the Yeishu ha Notzri theory as the source of one Jesus myths.

The Notzrim appeared as isolated groups but we know from their contemporary's writings that they were not a religion they were a social movement. There were many Jesus movements by the time of Paul. Gnosticism was widespread at the same period of time that Jesus supposedly lived. The Gnostics were not Christians they were Jewish. Gnosticism was a reasoned doctrine. They believed that salvation was found in a secret knowledge not in a god/man's crucifixion. It was shared ideas from Egyptian, Greek, Jewish and hermetic mystery religions. The early Christian church fathers were very threatened by this widespread movement and railed out against them as heretics. After the lifetime of the supposed Jesus Christians wrote the Nag Hammadi texts, they are not Gnostic writings, and they were written long after the fact.

All of the Christian Cults and Pagan myths (and there were many including Paul's cult) centuries later were consolidated into the Catholic Church. They chose four Gospels and discarded all the rest. The name Jesus was decided on over 300 years after the events and that is when he was deified and made into a human savior God. That made it possible for Paul to have a visionary experience of Jesus without ever having actually known a Jesus. All that was left to do was to eliminate all other competing religious groups. This lead to mass murder and torture, and the burning of millions of books and some libraries. The books that are attributed to Paul in the New Testament indicate that he was ignorant of many important issues concerning Jesus because those details were myths that were later added to Christianity after Paul wrote his letters. Ignatius' letters makes it obvious that the myth of a first-century historical Jesus originated with Ignatius. The idea of a virgin birth god comes from Isis worshipers. Mythological savior god stories were used to give Christianity a wider appeal. Gospel writers used existing myths from Pagan religions because they wanted to appeal to the followers of the Pagan religions. There were major religions in that time and place that had these myths that were later incorporated into the Jesus myth. The virgin birth came from earlier myths, including the myth of a pagan savior god Tammuz who is mentioned in the Bible. The miracle working savior god who is betrayed and then crucified was part of pagan religions of the time. Celsus pointed out the Pagan myths that the Jesus myth was copied from. However, some of the stories came from misinterpretations of Hebrew words. For example, Nazareth was not the name of a place; Notzri was the name of a social reform group. In the fourth century the Emperor Constantine, due to efforts of his mother St. Helena, started looking for the city of Nazareth in Palestine to build a basilica, when it wasn't found they just named a village that already existed Nazareth. There is not a shred of evidence for a city named Nazareth in the period of the alleged Jesus.

In the Gospel of Mark Jesus is referred to as the son of Mary, a description reserved for the illegitimate. There is no miracle birth and he only says Jesus came from Nazareth, a misinterpretation of the word Notzri. Whoever wrote the book titled Mark obviously had read that Jesus was a Notzri but didn't know what it meant. There is no mention in Mark of a virgin birth. This is because at the time the book titled Mark was written these myths had not existed. Whoever wrote Matthew incorporated many of Mark's myths and added on a few. The objective of Matthew was to make Jesus into the promised Messiah of the Jews, but his genealogy conflicts with the one in the Old Testament. Luke's gospel was written to explain the new religion to the Gentiles. These pathetic obvious dubious Gospels were canonized in spite of protests from many bishops.

In 312 Emperor Constantine fought the battle of Milvan Bridge, against a rival for the emperor's throne. Constantine's soldiers were mostly Christians. Constantine had a great vision of the cross and God told him "In this sign you shall conquer." What a coincidence? And he was granted victory in his battle, which was crucial in consolidating his empire. Constantine saw a battalion of Christian soldiers, and he then he saw the light. Constantine was a Pagan and never converted to Christianity. He called for a Pagan priest on his deathbed. The deathbed conversion of Constantine is just another lie. Constantine viewed Christianity as just one of the many cults. Anyone who doubts this can get a picture of the still exiting Milvan Arch. As a monument to his victory at Milvan Bridge Constantine raised a triumphal arch, which is still there today. It still bears on it a dedication to the "Unconquered Sun" (a reference to Mithra). Constantine made (Sun) day the holy day of the Christians and decided that the savior god was born on December 25, which was the birthday of Mithra. Constantine's goal when he convened the First Council of Nicea was to end any dissent about the new religion and come up with a universal doctrine, and then it's on to conquering the world.